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WeBank, IBM and Other Organizations Jointly Held the 1st International Workshop on Federated Machine Learning in conjunction with IJCAI 2019

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Once a concept, AI is now ushering in a key stage of application. What’s the solution to the data silos among businesses? Given the enhanced regulation on data at home and abroad, what’s the solution to data privacy and security concerns? What’s the status quo of Federated Machine Learning and how to establish an ecosystem for FML in the future?

WeBank, IBM and other organizations jointly held the 1st International Workshop on Federated Machine Learning for User Privacy and Data Confidentiality (FML’19) in conjunction with the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-19) on Aug. 12, 2019, to further discussion on these issues.

President of IJCAI, Chair of FML Steering Committee, Chief AI Officer of WeBank Professor Qiang Yang delivered opening remarks at the workshop. Dr. Shahrokh Daijavad from IBM and Dr. Jakub Konečný from Google presented keynote addresses. In the panel discussion, top scholars from WeBank, Bar-Ilan University, IBM, Squirrel AI, Google, Huawei, Clustar, Sinovation Ventures and many other renowned enterprises and universities shared and discussed their findings and experience in FML as an emerging AI technology.

This workshop received 40 papers, of which 12 were presented during the workshop, 19 presented via poster. Awards include Best Theory Paper Award, Best Application Paper Award, Best Student Paper Award, Best Presentation Award. Selected high quality papers will be invited for publication in a special issue in the IEEE Intelligent Systems journal. All these attracted numerous scholars to engage in discussions and join efforts for building the FML ecosystem.

Experts from IBM and Google Share Groundbreaking Findings with a Focus on the Theory and Application of FML

Privacy and security are becoming a key concern in our digital age. On 25th May last year, the implementation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the EU, the toughest Act on data privacy protection, stressed that user data collection must be open and transparent. A series of laws and regulations from China and overseas also pose new challenges to the traditional way of handling data and model for cooperation. Seeking ways for AI to adapt to this new reality became top priority, a demand that led to this workshop on FML.

A wealth of solutions and breakthroughs were shared by Dr. Shahrokh Daijavad from IBM and Dr. Jakub Konečný from Google in their speech on FML.

Besides how FML can help tackle challenges in the business world, Dr. Shahrokh Daijavad also shared the concept of Fusion AI, which means to train models on widely distributed data sets, but fuse them to produce one equivalent to what centralized training would yield. “Unlike traditional machine learning, in Fusion AI, model parameters are shared and data is not transferred, which makes Fusion AI model better than models that moving data centrally.” Given the widely distributed data, the development of Fusion AI and FML became ever important and imminent.

“FML enables machine learning engineers and data scientists to work productively with decentralized data with privacy by default,” said Dr. Jakub Konečný from Google. He also shared with us how FML works and its use cases at Google. In the case of Gboard, as on-device data is privacy sensitive or large or is more relevant than server-side proxy data, and labels can be inferred naturally via user interaction, the application of Federated RNN compared to prior n-gram model can increase the accuracy of next-word prediction by 24%, and the click rate of prediction strip by 10%.

Major Figure Panelists Discuss the Way Ahead for FML

The moderator of the panel discussion, AI Principal Scientist of WeBank Dr. Lixin Fan joined panelists including Professor Benny Pinkas from Bar-Ilan University, Dr. Shahrokh Daijavad of IBM Academy of Technology, Chief Architect of Squirrel AI Dr. Richard Tong, Research Scientist of Google Dr. Jakub Konečný, Dr. Baofeng Zhang from CTO Office of CBG Software in Huawei, Executive VP of Clustar Dr. Junxue Zhang, VP of AI Institute in Sinovation Ventures Dr. Ji Feng and other experts in a host of in-depth exchanges with attendees, to shed light on the way ahead for FML.

Experts shared thoughts in the panel discussion on questions including but not limited to: How to meet the security and compliance requirements? Is there a way to extend the value of data while observing user privacy and data security? Given the classic trade-off between data regulation and development of AI, how to achieve the long-term goal of establishing a stable and win-win business ecosystem?

List of Award-Winners

Best Theory Paper Award, Best Application Paper Award, Best Student Paper Award and Best Presentation Award selected by all attendees were announced at the closing of the workshop.

Best Theory Paper Award: 
Preserving User Privacy for Machine Learning: Local Differential Privacy or Federated Machine Learning? By Huadi Zheng, Haibo Hu & Ziyang Han;

Best Application Paper Award: 
FedHealth: A Federated Transfer Learning Framework for Wearable Healthcare. By Yiqiang ChenJindong WangChaohui YuWen Gao & Xin Qin;

Best Student Paper Award: 
Quantifying the Performance of Federated Transfer Learning. By Qinghe JingWeiyan Wang, Junxue Zhang, Han Tian & Kai Chen;

Best Presentation Award: 
Federated Generative Privacy. By Aleksei Triastcyn and Boi Faltings.

President of IJCAI, Chief AI Officer of WeBank Professor Qiang Yang, Chief Architect of Squirrel AI Dr. Richard TongandVP of AI Institute in Sinovation Ventures Dr. Ji Feng presented the awards.

“The mission of this International Federated Machine Learning Workshop is to facilitate further understanding in the academia, business community as well as legal and regulatory institutions by promoting the establishment of FML ecosystem in the hope that more businesses will join and build a platform for students aspired to work in FML to find research teams that suit them,” said Professor Qiang Yang.

Held Aug. 10-16, 2019 in Macao, China, IJCAI-19 is one of the leading International Academic Conference on AI, attracting over 3000 AI research personnel and experts. The 1st International Workshop on Federated Machine Learning (FML’19) was a highlight for experts joining this event. Visionaries in the academia and industrial sector expressed the willingness to be part of the effort for academic research, application of FML in the future, and the development and boom of AI ecosystem.

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AeC Recognized by Frost & Sullivan for Leading the Customer Relationship Industry in Brazil

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AeC is the largest customer relationship company in Brazil and its reliable and customized customer care solutions help businesses create seamless end-user experiences.

SAN ANTONIO, March 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Frost & Sullivan recently researched the customer experience outsourcing services industry and, based on its findings, recognizes AeC with the 2023 Company of the Year Award. AeC is connecting technology with outstanding customer service to increase efficiency and optimize the customer’s business journey. AeC leverages artificial intelligence (AI), data intelligence, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), fraud prevention, and real human experiences to guarantee an optimal customer experience (CX) in its clients’ business operations.

The company helps businesses deliver a remarkable CX to remain competitive in the marketplace and meet its clients’ demands. It consistently aims to enhance end-user CX by carefully analyzing customer data, testing new business models, and adjusting its processes based on customer feedback.

AeC drives its clients’ digital transformations with innovative tools that provide superior business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The company launched Vision, an advanced and intuitive solution that allows managers to track agents’ performance and deliver effective support. Moreover, its AeC HR technology platform, Robbyson, assists businesses by increasing engagement and efficiency with AI to automatically estimate, suggest, and forecast outcomes.

“With a legacy of BPO services leadership, the company’s compelling value proposition underpins its sustained success. AeC holds a solid position with a diversified client base, serving industry leaders of every market, including four of the top five Brazilian unicorns and two of the top five energy organizations in Brazil,” said Sebastian Menutti, industry principal at Frost & Sullivan.

With its customer-centric approach, the company provides consulting and highly customized projects for its clients. AeC bases its operations on the core principle that its success depends on customer satisfaction. For this reason, the company meets with clients at the pre-sales stage to identify their specific business requirements and challenges to develop tailor-made solutions.

“The company acknowledges that offering a complete product portfolio that aligns with broader market trends (e.g., omnichannel customer services, automation capabilities, and tools that address security challenges) is a key differentiator. Therefore, it constantly leverages technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its services, such as automating processes and using data analytics to gain insights into end users’ behaviors and preferences,” noted Valentina Barcia, best practices research analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents a Company of the Year award to the organization that demonstrates excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation in its field. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies, and the resulting leadership in terms of customer value and market penetration.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in various regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Frost & Sullivan

For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Kristen Moore
P: +1 (210) 247-3823
E: [email protected]

About AeC

AeC is a Brazilian technology company specializing in customer relations. Leading by innovation, the most outstanding is the warm way of dealing with people and applying cutting-edge technology in its processes, such as artificial intelligence, cloud services, analytics, and automation tools. For over 30 years, it has developed customized consumer experience solutions in the market, helping companies in different segments, such as digital businesses, fintech, financial sector, telecommunications, services, retail, insurance, energy, and health. Currently, AeC has more than 43,000 employees and is certified by the Great Place to Work Institute (GPTW).

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/C O R R E C T I O N — Roborock/

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Roborock Reports 2023 Full Year Financial Results

Achieving Record-breaking Financial Success and Reaching Historic High in Total Assets

HONG KONG, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Roborock, a global leader in ultra-intelligent home robotics engineered to simplify daily life, today announced its financial results for the full year ending December 31, 2023.

Roborock achieved remarkable financial success during the reporting period, posting revenue of 8.65 billion Yuan (US$1.22 billion), representing a significant 30.55% Year-On-Year increase. The company recorded a net profit of 2.05 billion Yuan (US$288 million), achieving an annual growth rate of 73.32%.

Roborock’s total assets reached an all-time high of 14.38 billion Yuan (US$2.02 billion), reflecting Year-On-Year growth of 32.71%. These achievements solidify Roborock’s position as one of the leading players in the smart vacuum industry. The company also recorded impressive overseas revenue, growing at a rate of 21.42%, while total robot vacuums shipments surpassed 2 million units.

“Ever since we founded Roborock back in 2014, our long-term mindset and unwavering commitment to focusing on delivering true value to our customers is what has gotten us to where we are today. It’s been an amazing journey, and we are truly proud to emerge as a global leader in smart vacuums.” said Richard Chang, Founder & CEO of Roborock.

“As we approach our 10-year anniversary, we are excited to introduce more of our cutting-edge vacuums, including the S8 MaxV Ultra which we unveiled at CES 2024. This flagship innovation represents our most technologically advanced one-stop cleaning solution to date, underlining our focus on enriching future lifestyles within the smart home ecosystem to enhance the quality of life for our customers worldwide.

Financial Performance Highlights

Sales and Net Profit

  • Total revenue recorded was 8.65 billion Yuan (US$1.22 billion)
  • Of this, 4.23 billion Yuan (US$595 million) is attributed to Roborock’s overseas operations, accounting for 49% of total revenue
  • Roborock’s overseas operation recorded a revenue growth of 21.42% compared to the previous year
  • The company achieved a net profit of 2.05 billion Yuan (US$288 million), with an annual growth rate of 73.32%
  • Roborock’s total assets reached a historic high of 14.38 billion Yuan (US$2.02 billion), reflecting a remarkable 32.71% Year-On-Year growth

Growth across Product Categories

  • Roborock’s total robot vacuums shipments surpassed 2 million units, generating an income of 8.09 billion Yuan income (US$1.14 billion) and achieving a Year-On-Year growth of 27.14%
  • Roborock experienced rapid growth across new product categories (product portfolios except robot vacuums), with an income of 554 million Yuan (US$78 million) income and a Year-On-Year growth of 109.4%

Research & Development

  • R&D expenditure amounted to 619 million Yuan (US$87 million), accounting for 7.15% of total revenue. This represents a year-on-year growth of 26.69%
  • During the reporting period, 522 new domestic and overseas patents were filed

Major accounting data and financial indicators in the past 3 years

(Unit: Yuan; Currency: RMB)

2023

2022

Year-On-Year
Growth (%)

Total Assets

14,376,641,614

10,833,053,890

32.71

Net assets
attributable to
shareholders of
listed companies

11,380,526,122

9,556,378,416

19.09

Revenue

8,653,783,788

6,628,716,402

30.55

Net profit
attributable to
shareholders of
listed companies

2,051,217,414

1,183,476,942

73.32

Net profit
attributable to
shareholders of
listed companies
after deducting
non-recurring
gains and losses

1,826,089,668

1,197,719,439

52.46

Net cash flow
from
operating activities

2,185,931,368

1,120,467,567

95.09

About Roborock

Roborock is committed to innovation in researching, developing, and producing home cleaning devices, particularly robotic, cordless, and wet/ dry vacuum cleaners. Every Roborock product has been designed with an eye on solving genuine problems, so Roborock customers can live better lives. Currently, Roborock is available in more than 40 countries, including the U.S., Germany, France, and Spain. The company operates out of four locations, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. For more information visit https://us.roborock.com/.

Exchange Rate Information

This announcement contains translations of certain RMB amounts into U.S. dollars at a specified rate solely for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from RMB to U.S. dollars and from U.S. dollars to RMB are made at a rate of 7.1132 Yuan to US$1.00, the spot exchange rate at the annual reporting date of December 31, 2023. The company makes no representation that the RMB or U.S. dollars amounts referred could be converted into U.S. dollars or RMB, as the case may be at any particular rate or at all.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2374470/Roborock_2023_Financial_Results.jpg

 

 

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Sleep interiors brand gets job offer from Peter Jones despite not securing investment in Dragons Den

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LONDON, March 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Tonight on BBC1, REMY founder Abeer Iqbal, entered the Den, and despite intense grilling and no investment, left with a six-figure job offer from Peter Jones

Abeer’s pitch began with the Dragon’s keen to experience his sleep-enhancing furniture. When Steven and Peter laid on his hero  ‘The Pod’, a reinvention of the beanbag, and under REMY’s best-selling ‘The Lounger’ weighted blankets, the dragons closed their eyes and pretended to snore. Which was ironic, as despite being told he’d enter the Den around 5pm, Abeer actually went in at 9.30pm, after the dragons had been receiving pitches since early that day, which to Abeer’s own admission “wasn’t easy”. Deborah Meaden said, “This might have been a fatal mistake to put your dragons to sleep before we start the pitch” – recognising that it had been a long day.

After 10+ years working in tech, helping multi-million pound businesses grow their empire at software giants like Shopify, Abeer experienced burn-out, which led him to develop REMY. Despite Abeer telling the dragons that he left the high-pressure industry due to stress and anxiety Peter Jones still offered him a job back in the rat race with a six-figure sum (which he still hasn’t taken). 

After leaving the Den, Abeer admitted feeling the “most anxious ever” and that he “just wanted to get back to his wife for a hug”.  Abeer shared, “I didn’t sleep for days, replaying every moment in my mind. I wanted to forget it.” But it’s not all bad, as Abeer explains, “the anxiety I experienced from the Den gave me a lightbulb moment and led me to create our most popular product yet – The Hugger Pillow. I needed a hug, so I created one”. 

Abeer continues, “I returned the next day to collect my items from the studio. I bumped into a fresh-faced Peter and Toukar in the carpark, they both praised my experience, Peter once again offered me a job and Toukar asked me to call him when I start the next business.”

The global ‘sleep economy’ is booming, projected to reach a record high of $585 billion this year. But Abeer felt he was unable to communicate this, “If I could have my time again, I would focus on the industry of Rest and Sleep rather than the specific products we were trying to innovate. I don’t think I articulated to the Dragon’s the size of the business opportunity that there is with REMY. In terms of what’s next, we are moving towards becoming a household name in rest and sleep but offering products in multiple categories.”

The Dragon that seemed to understand Abeer’s passion for this industry was Sara Davies, saying “I actually fundamentally don’t agree with what I’ve heard here. What I see in front of me, yes he is great at the e-commerce side of things but he gave up a career in corporate because he was passionate about this area. And if there’s one thing I know about business it’s that you will succeed when you pursue the thing you are passionate about. I wouldn’t discourage you to give up. Keep doing it and good luck. I think you could sell anything”.

You can watch Abeer Iqbal on Dragons’ Den on BBC iPlayer.

remysleep.com / @WEAREREMY

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2374872/REMY_Sleep_1.jpg

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